Scenario Writing

The future is an intrinsic part of our lives. Every day we take actions that will impact on our future. We have a desire to learn about things we will need or use in the future – in essence, we learn and achieve based upon our images of the future.

Our visions of the future have an effect upon our abilities to live, adapt, cope, and grow in our changing world. Scenario Writing encourages students to develop their own visions of the future and personalises the ever-growing perspective a student has on the future.

What is Scenario Writing?

Students who love to read and write science fiction will thrive in Scenario Writing. Scenario Writing encourages creativity and advanced writing skills. Students choose a Global Issues topic from the year’s list that particularly appeals to them, researches it thoroughly and identifies the major issues that are likely to exist within the topic in the future. Scenarios are set 20 – 40 years in the future, giving students the opportunity to expand their imagination.

A scenario is a 1500 word futuristic scenario that challenges students to create a short story that focuses on the issues they have discovered in the topic. Students can opt to submit one or two scenarios in a year. We recommend submitting twice. The feedback that is given by the evaluators for the first submission has led to several students recrafting their scenarios, resubmitting them later in the year and these have then gone on to win at the National Finals.

The Competition

The writers of the highest scoring scenarios in each division will be invited to the National Finals, where they can take part in an onsite, group scenario writing contest. The first-placed national scenario writers are invited to represent NZ at the International Finals in the USA. Second and third-placed writers may, if they wish, submit their scenarios to be evaluated at the International level and, should they place in the top 5 internationally, will also be invited to the International Finals.

Examples

Please click the links below to enjoy reading some of New Zealand's winning scenarios.